Still no leads in Prince's disappearance

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published January 20, 2006

Nearly three weeks after she disappeared, Temple Terrace police still have no solid information on the whereabouts of 59-year-old Sandra Prince.

TEMPLE TERRACE - Three weeks into Sandra Prince's disappearance, Temple Terrace police still have no solid leads as to where the 59-year-old social worker could be. Not even after her family put up a $50,000 reward for information.

"We are so anxious just to get an inkling of what has happened," said her cousin Jim Moore, 68, in town Friday from North Carolina on his second trip since Prince vanished.

She was last spotted by a co-worker the Friday before New Year's Eve at the Agency for Community Treatment Services, a substance abuse treatment program she co-founded 30 years ago.

The following Tuesday, a concerned neighbor reported her missing from her Theresa Arbor home. Her back door was unlocked, her car was in the garage and her cell phone still inside the house. There were no signs of a struggle. It was as if she had walked out the back door and into thin air.

Moore said Prince is not the kind of person to take off on a whim.

"She is genuinely a caring person and just so reliable, so dependable, her word is her bond. I have never known her to fail to meet her responsibilities," Moore said. "It is just totally out of character for Sandra to be missing of her own volition."

Moore last saw Prince three months ago. She had gone to North Carolina to visit him and his wife for a long weekend. The cousins quibbled about rival college basketball teams and caught up on their lives.

"We were very close. She talked to me about events in her life freely," Moore said, adding that if she could have, she would have let him know where she was.

But family members are still hopeful, Moore said. Prince's friends, neighbors and co-workers will hold a candlelight vigil todayat 5:30 p.m. in front of her home on 11507 Moffat Place in Temple Terrace.

Keeping her name and photo in the public eye could be the Temple Terrace Police Department's best tool in tracking Prince down, said police spokeswoman Paula MacDonald.

"We need to make sure this lady's photo stays out, as we don't have a lot of new information to share," MacDonald said. "It's important that we let the public know we need their assistance."

Anyone with information can contact Detective Darrin Berberat at the Temple Terrace Police Department at (813) 989-7118 or after hours at (813) 989-7110.